


Season 1: Sophomore Year Beginnings

by Kira_Dattei



Series: Kurt Hummel's Part of Something Special [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gap Filler, Gen, Introspection, Kurt Hummel-Centric, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: Kurt took a chance on auditioning for the Glee Club. Some days that is more obvious than others.





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there Glee fandom!  
> So I started writing this a while ago as a way to get more familiar with writing the characters. Each episode will have it's own chapter, as stated in tags, this is just a between the scenes sort of fic where I also get to have fun with my headcanons and explore Kurt's mindset throughout. There will be other POVs later, but it is focused on Kurt.  
> Hope you enjoy!

As excited as he was to have auditioned for the Glee Club, Kurt still wasn’t completely sure if it was the right thing for him to do. Sure, he’d thought about it a few times since starting at McKinley last year, but between Sandy Ryerson – he was kind of afraid of how that criminal would act toward him – and how many times he already had to pull himself out of the dumpster or change into clothes not stained by the liquid dye of the day, it had seemed like too much of a risk.

He’d already felt like he pushed the limits of Puckerman’s patience with his inability to not let out some scathing insults every few attacks.

How bad would it get if he actually came out? The thought alone was enough to keep him contently denying who he really was to the world.

But all that didn’t mean anything since they couldn’t all get their act together enough to be halfway decent. Even with Finn Hudson added to the mix, they weren’t coming together at all past a brief time during You’re the One That I Want.

And unlike Rachel, who he was regretting even holding the acquaintance of in greater degrees with each passing day, he wasn’t so confident that he couldn’t see that they were _all_ part of the problem. Rachel knew they were bad, but refused to accept she was contributing in any other way than making them less pathetic.

Kurt thought they were too caught up in being high schoolers/teenagers for anything of use to get through. Because despite how he had never actually performed before – he’d found ways to avoid being in the spotlight even through all his years of piano and dancing lessons – he knew well enough that you were your own worst enemy when it came to putting on a show.

And they were all playing the parts of supervillains right now.

Rachel and Mercedes were bowling over everyone with their personalities and need to be the center of attention. Tina and Artie kept to each other’s company and hadn’t really talked to anyone else if it didn’t pertain to the number. Finn didn’t really want to be there. And Kurt was at such odds with himself that it was a wonder he could get any notes out at all.

He wanted to be center stage, to have an audience see what he was capable of and cheer for him, just like Rachel was able to effortlessly accomplish, but as long as he was…well, Kurt Hummel, that wasn’t happening.

He just hoped that if Glee Club fell through, like it was looking to do, that his dad didn’t make him try out for football anyway. He’d been pretty adamant about Kurt needing to be on a team, be a part of something and Kurt felt like he’d dodged a bullet with the timing on Mr. Schuester taking on the Glee Club and making it a feasible option.

To think: all this because Kurt’d had a pretty bad day and had been stupid enough to let his thoughts take form enough to get caught by Miss Pillsbury. It hadn’t been the first time he’d gotten that down, but it was the first time he’d been caught and just seeing how scared and upset his dad had been was enough to destroy the urge for good: he couldn’t stomach the prospect of being the one Burt Hummel had to put into the ground after seeing what his mom’s death had done to the man.

And who would help Burt get through it if Kurt wasn’t around? No one, because they were alone. They weren’t close to any other family, geographically or personally.

Either way, nobody at school would probably notice Kurt not being around anymore, but his dad was his dad even if they hadn’t really acted like it increasingly over the past few years, Kurt withdrawing from who he was and his dad not knowing what to do but let him.

Glee Club held the potential to let Kurt change all that for himself, to maybe actually find the confidence to be who he was. Not the flawless superior act he maintained, but actually letting people see him for who he really was.

Once he knew who that was, that is…

He still wasn’t really sure what kind of person he was: not when he was too far in the closet to get a good picture.

So was Glee Club really worth the risk?

The talent was there in each one of them, but in a “diamond in the rough” sort of manner. They all cared about Glee in their own way. They weren’t Vocal Adrenaline, but they were only in their first week of rehearsals. Sure, Rachel was _way_ more irritating than any single person should be able to be. Yeah, seeing Finn in a situation removed from him watching Kurt be sent into the dumpster wasn’t helping his wonderfully strong crush pass. Okay, Artie could say some things that should never come out of a white boy’s mouth and that were actually pretty rude. Fine, Tina’s goth style and attitude grated well beyond Kurt’s tolerance for fads. Hey, at least Mercedes seemed to genuinely be interested in him and they had made an acceptable connection.

Kurt’s phone buzzed from his bedside table and he actually took a minute to look over from his morning moisturizing routine to give it a strange look through the mirror before he stood and crossed the room to grab it, raising an eyebrow seeing that the text was from Rachel. They had all exchanged numbers after the first Glee Club rehearsal – at Rachel’s insistence, which meant they mostly went along with it to shut her up - but save for a few texts from Mercedes over the past few days, Kurt’s phone hadn’t become much more active than it had been before acquiring five new numbers.

_Rachel: Meet in the auditorium for extra practice on the number._

Damn, this girl put him to shame when it came to “dramatic” and “bitchy” and that was a pretty high bar. As much of a morning person as he could be if necessary, no one should have to deal with Rachel Berry before setting foot on school property. That thought determined his response.

**_You could have waited until we saw each other at school in an hour._ **

He returned to his vanity, taking his phone with him, knowing that Rachel would be sending a response. She always had something to say. It didn’t take long and his phone went off with a few notifications in quick succession.

_Rachel: I wanted to make sure you didn’t commit to another obligation you would have to cancel in order to attend. I remembered you mentioning that you are well-practiced in waking up with ample time prior to school starting._

Kurt had typed out **_Not to talk to anyone_** completely before stopping himself and deleting the message, just for the sake of not having to deal with Rachel getting indignant. Again, it was too early and she was obstinate enough to call him and not stop trying to call him if he didn’t answer. He took the still-scathing-but-not-so-insulting route.

**_This is Kurt, not Finn. Match your expectations to reality when it comes to what I’m going to be doing after school._ **

There was a somewhat longer pause before he received another response, enough that he’d been able to finish his routine and start getting dressed.

_Rachel: Then I’ll see you at school._

* * *

One week shouldn’t make such a difference in someone’s life, Kurt decided as he took a moment to watch the rest of the New Directions gather their belongings and leave the auditorium. But here he was, heading into his weekend with plans to meet up with Mercedes and Tina to get some more costume ideas for the future group numbers they would work on; there was only so much those besides Kurt would be able to accomplish while restricted to their own wardrobes. He had meetings of a club he was a member of that would keep him later after school instead of just going home or to the shop to help his dad out and get a little extra cash. Mr. Schuester had even mentioned Saturday rehearsals every once in a while if they needed it. He was a part of something where he was a contributing member to something good.

And, seriously, if what they could put together in just over one day for Don’t Stop Believin’ garnered these results, then what could they accomplish with the months they had before Sectionals? And then Regionals? And then Nationals!

Suddenly it didn’t seem as far-fetched as it had been after they’d seen what Vocal Adrenaline was capable of.

Finn had actually brought them together in a way Mr. Schuester hadn’t.

He’d actually apologized for bullying them and he’d seemed pretty genuine about the whole thing. And Finn was pathetic at lying so Kurt really didn’t have a reason to doubt him, crush notwithstanding. Because, honestly, all the times Kurt had imagined Finn making a grand declaration of his regret for letting Kurt get thrown into the dumpster or Slusheed, it didn’t compare in the least to the swell of affection Kurt went through when it actually happened. And Kurt was a few steps closer to being hopelessly infatuated with the quarterback.

And then they had successfully put together the music, choreography, band, and costumes and had performed!

…It was so much better that Kurt had imagined it would be.

Sure, he’d had that song with Rachel before auditioning and then his actual audition, but this had been so different. To be a part of bringing something together and joining his voice – his voice that _everyone_ made fun of – with others to make something succeed was so exhilarating.

Maybe his dad really had been onto something. He’d have to make something special for dinner to thank him since he’d already said the words.

Kurt took in a deep breath and straightened up from grabbing his bag from just off the side of the stage and walked back out, needing to cross it to get to the exit closer to his locker. He stopped at center stage and looked out over the empty auditorium. He’d looked out to the rows of chairs and line of spotlights on the far wall quite a few times now, but this was the first time that he didn’t also feel any sort of…reservation.

He could own this stage. He could stand on this stage and capture the attention of every person watching. He could feel good about himself, like he was worth something to someone, like he mattered. What else could he really ask for, as someone who really did want to perform?

Don’t Stop Believin’ was just the beginning.

“Kurt?” Mr. Schuester’s voice called his name and he turned to where the man was just off stage, looking at him with a curious expression. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the answer was automatic, the one he would pretty much always give when asked that or a variation thereof. He would have just left it at that, having never had Mr. Schuester as a teacher before since his second language had always been French, but this man _had_ just made a pretty substantial sacrifice to stay with them.

And Kurt was probably the only one among the Glee Club who really had an idea of what Mr. Schuester had really just given up to not change jobs. He’d been helping his dad pay bills for their home and the garage for years now and he knew just what the cost of living looked like and what adding a baby to expenses could mean to someone’s bank account.

So maybe Kurt owed Mr. Schuester a little more than his standard disconnected response.

Which was somewhat unfamiliar territory.

“Thank you for deciding to stay. This wasn’t what I was expecting it to be,” Kurt revealed, feeling increasingly nervous about being so honest. And nervous meant his condescending tone was lurking just beneath the surface, waiting to be needed and put to good use. He took in a slow breath as he made sure his expression gave away none of his nerves, relieved when found his careful mask firmly in place.

Mr. Schuester still looked curious. “And what were you expecting?”

Kurt’s shoulder lifted in a dismissive shrug. “For us to not be any better than a pathetic embarrassment.” After their failure at Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat and seeing Vocal Adrenaline, he felt the thought had been well-founded.

The teacher’s expression pinched a little around the eyes and Kurt knew for sure what he suspected about Mr. Schuester: the man cared deeply about his students. Well, he might as well get used to harsh criticism coming from Kurt about whoever he felt needed it at the moment as pretty much Kurt’s only defense was his eloquence in delivering not-entirely-constructive criticism. As long as people didn’t see him affected by what was done to him, he would survive another day. Having one teacher pay attention wasn’t going to change that about him.

Hell, Mr. Schuester was bound to be a victim sooner rather than later, especially since he seemed like someone who would meddle in others’ business if it meant getting the answers he was looking for. Kurt didn’t like people butting in where they didn’t belong.

“Kurt, you all showed me in your auditions that you deserve a place in the New Directions. You’re all going to show everyone we come up against that you belong on this stage, even with Vocal Adrenaline.”

“There’s a lot of ground for us to figure out and cover before we get there. We’re better off focusing on next week and sectionals than jumping ahead to Vocal Adrenaline.”

The man finally lost a little of that curiosity and actually now looked more amused. “You’re a very straightforward person, aren’t you? We haven’t really had the chance to talk before now.”

Kurt’s grip on the strap of his bag tightened in an attempt to keep himself from making a biting comment. The man had passed right by him enough times just before he’d been tossed into the dumpster that it was hard to not call him out on that now.

“Spanish isn’t my language and dancing around a subject is a waste of time. Anyway, I told my dad I would help him out at the shop today.”

“He runs a tire shop, right?”

“Yes, and one of his mechanics is out sick today and he needs more hands.”

Mr. Schuester smiled at Kurt then, the expression gentle. “You’re a good son, helping him out like that when he needs it.”

“Who else is going to? I’ll see you next week, Mr. Schuester.” Kurt was not completely above admitting that he was beating a hasty retreat in leaving like he was. But the teacher was making this way deeper of a conversation than it needed to be. Kurt had thanked him and kind of complimented what they’d accomplished that week. Turning it into some heart-to-heart was unnecessary.

Best to try and avoid that kind of thing in the future. Or at least until Kurt knew that it would be worth it to let him and the rest of the Glee Club actually get to know him.

He needed more than one week – _way_ more – to make a call like that.


	2. Showmance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt could do sexy if he really didn't think about it and didn't call it that.

Will Schuester was ending up to be a strange man to be around and have as a coach. On the one hand, he had kept them working on Don’t Stop Believin’ – ergo listening to what they wanted – to get it to the level of competition performance while simultaneously making them do disco and ignoring them completely.

Now, Kurt had nothing against the classics and older music; Broadway was his primary wheelhouse after all and he held deep appreciation for pretty much every single musical icon that had come along through history. But part of challenging himself in growing as a performer – even before he’d become one – was to not allow himself to stagnate into a certain genre or time period. Sure, some things would never be on his go-to playlist, but he had to be able to pull anything off.

But, wow, disco sucked.

There just really wasn’t anything appealing about it. Kurt would take rap – the faster pace of the lyrics were a challenge and there was an art to the words that didn’t exist with other genres, though he did recognize that he wasn’t someone who should be rapping anyway – over disco and its awkward dancing, tasteless style, and substandard lyrics.

So if their teacher could wake up to this decade, then performing at the assembly would actually be somewhat appealing instead of the social death sentence that it was bound to be. And for _them_ to worry about a drop in social standing, that was pretty serious.

So while Mr. Schue was remaining infuriatingly unmoved by the prospect of changing numbers, even after they’d already proven that they could throw together a decent performance, most of them had discussed to some level of severity how they could get away with not showing up to school on Friday without getting in trouble.

Honestly, they should have thought of just coming up with their own number to do before Rachel brought it up just two days before they were supposed to perform. Once they’d all agreed that pretty much anything would be better than disco, they had entered into an hour long discussion as to which song they would perform with Rachel, Mercedes, and Artie leading the charge and Kurt and Tina acting as buffers for the too extreme or complicated options. As much as Kurt would love a full-blown production of All That Jazz proportions, they just didn’t have the time to put together anything too vocally complicated while learning choreography that would be the true focus of the performance. They were already having to do some serious coordinating on schedules to rehearse where Mr. Schue wouldn’t catch them.

But once Push It had been suggested – thanks to Tina rather than Mercedes or Artie – everything started coming together even smoother than it had for Don’t Stop Believin’. Kurt had jumped in on specifics for their costumes before it could be passed off to Mercedes again just for her to ask for his help.

“Just like the red, we want the shirts to be the same tone or close enough to look uniform. I’m sure you all have something blue just a few shades lighter than the denim jeans in your closets. And we’ll use black accessories to accentuate the look,” he’d declared. Because they were all working from their own clothes, Kurt was much more limited than he’d like. He already had a shirt in mind and decided to just get ahead of the potential for Finn and Artie to misunderstand him. “I’ll send you all a picture so you have the right shade. And then I want you all to show me what you have at least two hours before school starts tomorrow so I can find something if you don’t have what you need.”

Apparently he’d done well enough because he’d gotten an email from each of them within an hour of them all parting for the night with successful costumes and only some minor adjustments on what was considered an accessory.

So with costumes set and choreography reminiscent enough to Salt-N-Pepa’s performances, they had something they were much more comfortable showing to the school.

Though Kurt was grateful that every other person in the Glee Club had pretty much the same experience level when it came to sex. He didn’t feel so alone in relying on just matching his body’s motions to what he’d seen someone else do. As long as he didn’t think about what he was doing as “giving the student body sex” he shouldn’t get flustered and would he’d pull it off.

And he thought he did, actually getting so into his performance that he’d slapped Finn on the ass.

And didn’t get mortified about doing so until they’d been off stage for a few minutes and he was analyzing the performance mentally for improvements. He looked over to the other teen to see him pacing back and forth nervously. Figuring that pretending it didn’t happen was the best course of action, especially since the two of them just didn’t talk to each other, Kurt let it drop from his mind for the time being.

There were other concerns right now, like how upset Mr. Schue had looked as they had made their way off the stage. Rachel was already talking at about a mile a minute about how it was the right choice to make, Kurt guessed as a way to build up her argument before she’d actually have to give it to their teacher.

Mercedes walked over to where he was sitting just watching the drama queen go through her paces.

“Think we’ll get in trouble?” she asked simply. He really loved how blunt she was. Their argument the other day over her wardrobe choices had really been quite a relief for Kurt: he’d finally found someone who he could actually have an educated argument over fashion and give as well as he delivered.

“We were in trouble as soon as we went against Mr. Schue. It’s only a question of how bad the damage will be. Our only real hope is that we get plenty of people to audition who aren’t nymphomaniacs.”

“Fat chance of that. I wouldn’t mind getting some more bodies in here, but at the same time, I don’t want anyone coming in that’s going to ruin what we’ve got goin’ on.”

“Agreed. Could you imagine what it would be like if someone like Puckerman joined? Or any of Coach Sylvester’s horde?”

“I don’t know, might make for a good status boost.”

“While knocking some of us further back in the group. As horrible of human beings as the jocks and cheerleaders may be, they’re the ones people would rather be able to look at.”

Mercedes smacked his shoulder. “Kurt, please. Finn may be a strong male lead, but at least you can dance. I imagine he actually represents a standard for any of those big lugs’ concept of rhythm.”

Kurt gave a small grin at that. “It would explain why they can’t win against anyone.”

“It’s way more pathetic than anything we do.”

And with that, they shifted into discussion over the performance, sharing opinions of what went over well, what they needed to work on, what they could do for costumes next time that maybe didn’t rely on their own wardrobes, and just they could possibly offer as an argument against Mr. Schue when he got on their case about it.

Kurt had someone he could truly call a friend. First time for everything.

Actually being honest about who he was, with someone else as well as himself, didn’t seem like such a far-fetched prospect anymore.


	3. Acafellas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time admitting who he really is had to be the hardest part, right?

“I’m gay.”

Admitting it aloud and to someone else, someone he really cared about, was as big of a deal as Kurt thought it would be. Sure, on one hand it was such a relief to finally have someone to admit it to at all, and despite Mercedes’ apparent shock she had known on some level all along. But on the other hand, acknowledging it to another person made everything real on a completely different level. It was no longer this thing that he knew about himself that didn’t have a place being revealed to anyone else. Now it was a part of who he was and it would get to the point where everyone knew for sure.

Because that was the thing: now that he’d said it to one person, it was only a matter of time before other people would hear. Especially with Mercedes pressing him to tell the other kids in Glee.

He’d admit to when she’d said that. He was afraid that she’d gather them right away, stand him up in front of them, and force him into telling them. He couldn’t take that right now. Just telling Mercedes had taken all he had and he was already falling apart from how much stress it had put on him.

So he told her, “I can’t. I’m just not that confident, I guess.” And he’d said it with a humorless smile, tearing himself down so that he could pull himself back together enough to finish off his day.

That’s exactly what he did, too. He walked away from Mercedes, brought himself to his full height, raised his head high, ignored the trails of tears drying on his cheeks, and walked down the halls of McKinley like he owned them.

Just a few steps, that’s all it took to get his mask firmly back in place and hide from the world again.

This was what he was good at: pretending that everything was fine, making it seem like not only did nothing get to him but he was just above it all. When he’d told Mercedes that they were superior to everyone else at the school, it hadn’t been completely a front, but instead the thought process he’d needed to survive.

Not like he was wrong, but for someone hiding a bulk of his personality from the school at large, he’d had to play it up quite a bit. This was how someone who everyone saw as having some sort of superiority complex could have that reputation and still claim with complete honesty that they lacked confidence.

He didn’t see Mercedes for the rest of the day. Their schedules didn’t overlap at all on Mondays and he took different routes to his classes so they wouldn’t run into each other in the halls. He’d talk to her again tomorrow after he’d had a chance to really regain his composure because he still felt like the right words would send him back to tears and he couldn’t take that twice in one day.

It was a huge relief that they didn’t have Glee that day. Like Mercedes had said, Glee was about expressing themselves and Kurt felt like anything he’d do that day would be expressing too much, and with Quinn, Santana, and Brittany with them now he had to do some reevaluation of what he could give away. Coach Sylvester’s Cheerios couldn’t be trusted.

Though, to be fair, they all had their – for lack of a better term – quirks that made them bad candidates for being trusted with something personal. Those three just happened to have an obvious loyalty concern.

At the end of the day, he was about to head to the parking lot when he remembered that he didn’t have his own car anymore. His dad had dropped him off and he’d said that he would work out a ride home. But with the conversation with Mercedes distracting him all day, he’d completely forgotten to ask around. He let out a heavy sigh as he considered if he really had options before resorting to walking home. It wouldn’t be too big of a deal, the few miles’ walk he’d gotten used to once he decided to never ride the bus again after the first day of school last year.

He couldn’t face Mercedes again just yet so she was out. Artie got picked up by his dad every day, but Kurt knew that the man used a break from work and had just enough time to get Artie home before having to go right back to work. Tina was on her permit. And he wasn’t even going to think about considering asking Finn or Rachel.

So, walking home it was and he was very grateful that shoes were the one part of his wardrobe that were always as functional as they were fashionable. That was a lesson learned years ago, as much from dance classes he’d been able to participate in as from dealing with bullies.

He changed direction, heading back toward his locker, needing to leave a few more of his textbooks behind if he was going to be making the trek home with as much ease as possible. He was just putting away his French textbook when someone stepped into his peripheral and he withheld an irritated sigh at realizing it was Rachel. He debated just ignoring her before he recalled that it was actually unusual that Rachel hadn’t already started talking. Her approach had certainly been confident enough, as it usually was.

Biting the bullet, he glanced over to her, acknowledging her presence. “What do you want, Rachel?” he asked shortly.

“Mercedes mentioned your car was getting fixed and that you might need a ride home,” Rachel explained, revealing that Mercedes hadn’t mentioned exactly why she wasn’t the one to help Kurt out regardless of how good of friends they had quickly become. Then again, knowing Rachel, she probably hadn’t even asked since it didn’t concern her.

“Yes, my car is being fixed. No, I don’t need a ride home,” he responded.

“What happened to it?”

Kurt hesitated slightly, not having expected her to ask. He used the act of closing his locker and pulling the strap of his bag to the opposite shoulder to buy a little more time. “A rock hit the windshield right in my field of vision. My dad wouldn’t allow me to continue driving with a potential visual impairment and I, as a mechanic’s son, agreed on the point.” It wasn’t completely a lie and cracked windshields were a peeve of Kurt’s so that certainly wasn’t a lie.

“I see. Who were you able to get a ride from? Artie and Mercedes are already gone.”

Apparently Rachel was treating this as something she had to be tenacious about to keep pressing the issue. Glee Club or not, the two of them didn’t get along: too similar in all the wrong ways and a closely matching musical wheelhouse meant that she was his primary competition.

“This may come as a surprise to you, but you don’t actually require a car to get from one place to another. There is this old fashioned yet still effective method of transportation called ‘walking’. Not only does it work to get you between places, but it is rather healthy.” Closing his locker, he considered that sufficient enough to dismiss Rachel. She was wonderfully intolerant of his sarcasm and he’d laid it on rather heavily. He didn’t need a favor, least of all from Rachel Berry.

“But don’t you live quite a ways away? That’s too far to walk. It would take you hours.”

“It may not be by too great of a margin, but I am taller than you, therefore I can get between places just a little quicker. It’s not really too far, I’ve done it before, and it’s not really a big deal.”

“But won’t your dad worry?”

Kurt just gave Rachel a pointed look, raising an eyebrow before he turned back to head toward the exit. “No, Rachel, because he realizes that I am sixteen and perfectly capable of getting myself home.”

“Kurt, Mercedes asked me to make sure I helped you if you needed a ride home and as you are a fellow Glee Clubber, I have an invested interest in keeping my word.”

“Did Mercedes tell you to force me into the car when I didn’t need or want the help you are offering?”

“Of course not. She did say that you would likely be hesitant to accept my help though. She said that you have problems accepting help.”

“Saying no isn’t a problem accepting help when it wasn’t asked for. I have every right to say no without being put through some attempt at a guilt trip.”

Rachel was not deterred and Kurt was becoming less surprised by this. “She also said that you would deny having an issue if I brought it up. I guess she knows you quite well.”

Not well enough to not figure out he was gay when it seemed like every other kid in this school called him out on it despite how much he denied it.

“Alright, Rachel, what do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?” Kurt snapped out instead. His patience was run too short to deal with this any longer and he just wanted to get home and close himself off in his basement for the rest of the evening with his iPod blasting until his dad got home and made him turn it down. And maybe he could compromise by making dad a good dinner and listen to the Beatles while he cooked. His dad was usually accepting of that.

“Let me give you the ride home like I promised Mercedes I would since you don’t have another ride.”

He wasn’t surprised but he was still quite disappointed. At least the ride wouldn’t be long.

“Fine,” he agreed begrudgingly and Rachel gave him her wide smile that still managed to freak him out a little and she stepped ahead of him to lead her toward her car. He fell into step behind her as she started babbling about something that he didn’t care enough to even pretend to listen to. Sitting down in the passenger seat, he gave her brief directions and the address, then turned to look out the window as she started the car and made quick work of selecting a CD to put into the player, setting it a somewhat low volume so it wouldn’t get in the way of conversation.

Not like there would be any conversation for it to interrupt.

Her choice ended up being a Sondheim mix and Kurt let his mind wander as he let the lyrics flow through him. Rachel had started singing along at once, but he remained silent except to give reminders of where to turn. He listened to the sound of the car, felt the motions of the vehicle, a habit his dad had instilled in him at an early age to always ensure as well as he could that he was in a healthy car. Following the check of the car was an evaluation of the driver and Rachel was acceptable enough to not make him feel the need to break his silence.

This was why he didn’t really make a good passenger unless his dad was driving: he knew he could trust his dad to have a perfectly working car and be a safe driver. Being a mechanic’s son was great most of the time, but this was where it got a little irritating.

Mercedes was a typical teenager when it came to driving and Kurt had spent half an hour getting on her case the first time he’d ridden with her a few weeks ago on one of their shopping excursions. She’d started cleaning up her driving whenever Kurt was in the car after he’d gone into precise detail – as he was known for providing – about how exactly they would be injured in a variety of accidents.

“I thought you, of all people, would know _Gypsy_ ,” Rachel suddenly said, catching his attention.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Rachel,” Kurt replied simply. Him not knowing Sondheim’s work was just insulting.

“Well, I just assumed because you weren’t singing. You should take every opportunity you have to train your voice to make up for the years you have gone without. We need every advantage we can get if we are to win at sectionals and regionals. And with my superior coaching you will be well on your way to harnessing the full extent of your vocal range.”

“As appealing as listening to you drone on about every single flaw in every single verse sounds, I will pass without hesitation or regret. It’s one thing to have to listen to it every single rehearsal, but I am not tolerating it if I don’t have to.”

“You should take every opportunity you have for improvement, especially since we turned down Dakota Stanley’s coaching.”

“And I will when an opportunity for improvement is offered. Listening to you talk isn’t an opportunity; it’s an irritation.”

Rachel pulled over at the curb in front of his house and he grabbed his bag from the floor and opened the door. He was about to thank her for the ride, not one to forget common courtesy, but she spoke before he could get it out. “Why are you always so defensive?”

Kurt stepped out of the car and considered just ignoring Rachel, but as usual that seemed like more trouble than it was worth. “I know you don’t make a habit of paying attention to other people so I’ll forgive your ignorance concerning how I’m treated.” He managed to keep the “from everyone” restrained: it wasn’t Rachel’s business that there really wasn’t anyplace he could go where he wasn’t on the receiving end of people’s hatred. “You can tell Mercedes that you’ve done your good deed for the day as long as you also tell her it was a wonderfully intolerable experience for both of us and we will never be repeating it.”

He closed the door then, walking away without looking back again, though he noticed that he was unlocking the door before he heard her drive away.

Yes, he’d been harsh, but Rachel only really seemed to hear things when they weren’t sugar coated. And the girl was really intolerable so he didn’t want to encourage her in any way to increase his exposure to her.

He just wished he could blame Mercedes without feeling like an insensitive Neanderthal. After all, if he wasn’t a coward about who he was, there wouldn’t have even been an issue.


	4. Preggers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joining the football team ends up bringing up one of the most important conversations of Kurt's life. Who knew?

The door to the basement closing behind his dad snapped Kurt out of his stupor and he rounded on Brittany and Tina. “I’m on the football team?” he demanded.

Tina looked a little flustered but Brittany just looked confused. “But you’re a kicker. You kick all the time and you’re good at it.”

Kurt was still in somewhat of an adjustment period to Brittany. The frequency at which she said things that made absolutely no sense was beyond measure and Kurt found himself in this complicated position of being equally frustrated and fascinated by her. She seemed to be a genuinely nice girl, unlike what he’d seen from Santana so far and Quinn cared more about appearance than he did – though in a different manner - and he guessed he could get along with her well enough because of that but talking to her became complicated quickly. Mainly because he couldn’t say anything complicated and that meant fighting against how he’d been talking since he was introduced to the breathtaking world of Broadway and show tunes and his mom had stipulated that he never sing a word he didn’t know the meaning for. Though Kurt imagined that she had intended that to slow him down on some of the music he found instead of encouraging him to crack open a dictionary in order to learn a new song every day.

“That’s dancing and has nothing to do with being on a team of guys who despise my very existence.”

“Just don’t t-tell him about any games,” Tina stuttered out.

“That may work for some kids, but my dad actually pays attention to what I tell him, especially since it includes football and me being on a team.” The way his dad had nearly forced him to join sports not so long ago still echoed in Kurt’s mind and while his dad didn’t seem to have any problem with him being in Glee Club – though that might be more about him not really understanding what Glee did – it wasn’t what Burt had originally wanted. “If I don’t give him answers, he’ll just call the school and ask.”

“So ask Coach Tanaka to put you on the team,” Brittany said.

“You’re still missing the point, Brittany. While I don’t doubt that the coach would let me on the team for his sheer lack of interest in what he does, nobody on that team likes me. Those are the guys who introduce me to the contents of the dumpster on a weekly basis.”

“They must just want you to make more friends.”

Brittany almost lost him there and Tina’s expression as she glanced over to the cheerleader said that she was worse off than Kurt, but then he thought over how he’d phrased his last statement and decided he should have seen that one coming: there was just no using colloquialisms with this girl. You had to say exactly what you meant, and then you had half a chance to keep her on track.

“You c-c-could just t-tell him the truth,” Tina said, fixing him with a steady gaze that led Kurt to believe that she wasn’t just talking about football. For someone so shy, she really could pull off a pretty confident tone and expression when it was something that mattered to her. They were all seeing it a little more often as they all settled into being around each other.

And of course she would just have to throw the same thing at him that Mercedes had, and that’s even with him ignoring that Tina was speaking from assumption instead of him telling her. Unless Mercedes hadn’t kept quiet about him actually admitting it to her; the girl was great, but she really did love to gossip.

“Why would he do that? Kurt’s dad seemed fine with him dating you,” Brittany’s jump to the less troubling of lies he’d just given his dad nearly made Kurt feel a little better even as he was getting a headache from having to keep up with Brittany while simultaneously keeping her on track. Hopefully this wouldn’t be as difficult the longer she was in Glee Club.

“We’re still talking about me not actually being on the football team, Brittany,” Kurt corrected while managing to dodge Tina’s suggestion.

“Oh, I thought you were going to talk to the coach and join the team. You said he’d let you on.”

“Might, he might let me on the team.”

“Then why not talk to Finn? He’s the quarterback so if he says you should be on the team, Coach might listen and problem solved.”

“That’s…” Kurt considered that option for a moment, “…not actually a bad idea.” Even considering that it was _Brittany_ who he’d just said had a good idea, he wasn’t really dissuaded from the thought. He’d gotten into this mess – albeit with full assistance from Brittany and Tina – and he had to deal with it now. “Fine, I’ll talk to Finn on Monday.”

Kurt barely kept himself from collapsing into the chair at his vanity. However, he didn’t even try to suppress the urge to run his hands through his hair, the action soothing in that his mom used to do it though he would ignore it for the sake of not having to fix his hair afterward. At the moment, he just didn’t care.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like football.

…Well, it wasn’t _only_ that he didn’t like football. He really didn’t like football, the idea of large roughnecks banging their heads together in a pointless display of testosterone removed any appeal to Kurt. He preferred the more civilized side of culture.

But besides his opinion of the sport, nearly every boy on that team had done nothing but tear him down since he started at McKinley, some having done so since middle school, and spending hours with them a week was just inviting more hardship for himself. He didn’t feel secure enough in his actual confidence to imagine he could survive that for as long as he’d need to pull the act off for his dad. His only hope would be to possess actual skill at football, and that was so far of a long shot it’d require a sniper to even joke at hitting the mark.

Tina moved into his peripherals and she kneeled down in front of him, coming close enough that she could keep what was said between the two of them. “You’re my friend, Kurt. And I know how hard it is to hide yourself away but you don’t have to. You should be honest with your dad, if no one else.”

“Do you know how many parents are okay with their kids being…like me?” He’d really meant to say it, but found himself lacking the ability to do so. He thought it would be easy, having already admitted it to Mercedes, but it just wasn’t. “I don’t know statistics because I find that too depressing to look up, but you don’t hear stories about dads just shrugging this sort of thing off and going on like it doesn’t change everything. And I can’t…” His eyes glanced back over to the stairs as if his dad was still standing there. “…I won’t do anything to risk him loving me. He’s all I have, Tina.”

Tina’s gaze lowered at the reminder that Kurt had so much riding on making sure he didn’t do anything to ruin what he and his dad had. People knew Kurt was in a single-parent household; it was a small town and he’d been born and raised there. Most people even knew that it was death and not divorce that had separated his parents. The Glee Club had learned quickly that the subject of his mom was taboo and no one was excused from bringing her up to him casually.

Because his mom did not fit into casual conversation and only he and his dad really understood that.

Taking in a deep breath, Kurt collected his thoughts and expression, schooling himself into his usual unaffected persona. “Well, I appreciate you two coming over and helping me out with the video. It looks so much better with back-up dancers.”

“I get a copy, right?” Brittany asked from where she had busied herself scrolling through his iPod.

“Only if you promise that it does not end up on YouTube or any other site,” Kurt stipulated without hesitation. There was no way he was going to open himself up for the ridicule that video would bring.

Brittany looked disappointed and Kurt was grateful that he was relatively good at reading people. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“I’m not surprised, which is why you are not allowed to ask anyone else to do it for you.”

“Fine, I promise the video won’t get put on MeTube.”

Tina gave out a quiet but heavy sigh, her relief obvious and Kurt considered how mortifying for her it would have been as well even as he fought actually smiling at Brittany’s response. She may be good on stage, but when faced with the population of McKinley High, she was still so shy about everything, which was unfortunate because she really did have quite a bit of talent.

As Kurt got to work on copying the video over to another disk for Brittany, his mind was stuck on repeat over the subject of asking Finn Hudson for the favor of asking Coach Tanaka if he could join the football team as a kicker so he didn’t have to tell his dad that he’d lied about the whole thing to keep him from finding out that Kurt was gay.

How was this his life? It was worse than some daytime soap opera that just laid things on too heavy, even for him.

* * *

He’d done it. Kurt had finally admitted that he was gay.

The only time Burt had seen his kid look that terrified had been during his mother’s last days and through her funeral. Except there had been nothing for him to be afraid of in this.

Not that Burt blamed him at all. He knew exactly what other parents thought was the way to react to that news and throwing Kurt out or sending him to some useless gay rehab weren’t options to Burt. He wouldn’t – couldn’t – do that to his own son. It’d be a betrayal that he wouldn’t be able to accept putting his _son_ through.

Eight years he’d been preparing himself to hear Kurt tell him. Only that long because until then, he’d been able to get away with denial and letting his wife handle things when he got uncomfortable around their kid. She pressed him to get used to the idea and he’d had every intention to, just closer to the age when it should be an issue, like later teens.

Burt wondered if Elizabeth’s death had delayed Kurt’s coming out, if he would have said it sooner if she was around.

Nothing he could do about it though, since he’d decided years ago that he wasn’t going to push Kurt to say anything, that he would let him come to that decision on his own. Because he knew his kid, knew that if he brought it up then Kurt would withdraw and wouldn’t accept anything that was said. After all, his kid was tough and part of that was finding a way not to listen when people didn’t have anything worthwhile to say.

But, damn this past week had been hard.

Ever since Kurt had joined the Glee Club, Burt had basically been holding his breath waiting for Kurt to come out. After all, he’d been happier, excited to go to school on the days he had practice, and he’d actually started hanging out with other kids. To Burt, that said that it was only a matter of time before he felt comfortable enough to just _tell him already_. He’d even started resorting to doing things that would try and coerce Kurt into fessing up: giving him the Navigator with the contingency he had and taking it away for the tiara collection he’d known about for years, pressing the issue when he’d caught Kurt doing that dance in the basement over the weekend, then asking about one of the girls being his girlfriend. He’d thought something would have gotten to Kurt enough that he would talk, but his kid was just too damn good at avoiding things he didn’t want to talk about.

But finally, Burt could actually make some progress on becoming more comfortable with the fact of Kurt being gay. While he’d done everything he could think of to make sure he really did accept that he couldn’t change his kid and loved him no matter what, there was a limit to what he could do on his own. He’d found that it didn’t matter how sure he was about it, there had been a part of him that had held out truly believing it as fact.

It was why he couldn’t keep from asking Kurt that one last time if he was sure.

And maybe now Kurt would actually start talking to him again and he could get an idea of what was going on with his kid. He’d been kept out of his son’s life ever since he started high school and that didn’t sit right with Burt at all: he’d always been very protective of his family and between his wife’s death and how many people he’d taken crap from about Kurt, that had gone into overdrive when it came to his son. He’d read enough stories and knew people well enough to know exactly how dangerous they could be to his son. And Kurt was such a good kid, had so much of his mother’s heart, that it was only a matter of time before he came face-to-face with one of those bigots’ hatred and got hurt.

Burt spent the rest of his evening mulling over what this could mean for them and getting simultaneously nervous while feeling relief, but he wasn’t really surprised by this since that’s what it had meant to be Kurt’s dad for years now.

The next morning was Saturday and Burt was excited for a day at the garage with Kurt’s hands on deck to help out. It was time for inventory and with Kurt there, he could hand over all the paperwork to the kid and know he was going to get exactly what he needed.

Too bad there was no chance his kid would be sticking around Lima once he was done with high school because he really was the best employee Burt could ever get, just as good with the business side as he was a mechanic.

Burt was settled at the table, working through his other mechanics’ schedules when Kurt came up, his appearance not given the same amount of care as it got on the days he wasn’t set to spend the majority of under a hood. He wore looser clothes he could move in easier that were more comfortable under his coveralls and while his hair was as perfectly positioned as it always was, there wasn’t as much stuff holding it all together.

They exchanged greetings as Kurt got started on their breakfast, the weekends being the only days that they were both home with enough time for him to do so and the way things had been for years, it was just as much of a tradition as their Friday night dinners. He watched Kurt go through the motions of gathering all he needed, the pulling out of blueberries giving away that he was going with pancakes, and Burt considered what to say to get them talking. Kurt wasn’t as much of a morning person as Burt was, the kid’s prime time being in the afternoon, and so it was usually up to Burt to at least start any conversation in the mornings. He’d usually just talk a little bit about what they had to work on but that didn’t really feel right this morning. Things had officially changed between them last night and he wanted that to be obvious.

Deciding there was no point to having some grand opening line, Burt just started with their standard Saturday morning exchange, “You ready to tackle inventory?”

Kurt let out a light scoff as he mixed up the batter, “Out of the two of us, who is still learning how to navigate the site?”

“Hey, I’m getting better. Not my fault computers aren’t making more sense as time goes on,” Burt defended with a grin, this far from being the first time Kurt had teased him for not being good with computers. “If it was still good old paper and pen, it’d be back to me having the advantage.”

“Yes, because your filing system was so well organized before you let me help you. Oh, right, you had no filing system. Everything was just piled on your desk. Or on the floor. Or in your chair. Or on the table next to the couch. Or on the couch.”

“I knew where everything was.”

Kurt gave him a doubtful look over his shoulder and Burt was all the happier to see how much amusement was dancing through his son’s eyes, the unique blend of colors – his wife had always used some fancy word for his kid’s eye color that he could never remember - practically glowing in his happiness. _This_ was his kid.

“Then why did you ask your twelve-year-old son to help you find all your receipts for serviced vehicles for that year? And why did your twelve-year-old son find them mixed in with your bills at home?”

“Same reason you still work there: cheap labor. Hell, at the time it was free labor.”

“I’m calling Child Protective Services once you leave the room. Or the Department of Labor, whichever can come investigate your atrocious work ethic sooner. You need to be stopped.”

“I’ll worry about that when I see the suits. By the way, the Navigator is fixed up.” Might as well fix that little failed manipulation and catch Kurt off-guard at the same time. It didn’t happen very often, so Burt liked actually pulling one over on his kid.

Kurt turned away from the stove he’d been about to turn on and gave Burt a stunned look. “What?” he asked, his voice cracking up a few notches with his shock.

“Yeah, the windshield’s been replaced and I went through and had one of the guys detail the dash and front seats, you know make sure there wasn’t any damage from the glass. It’s been parked out at the garage for the past few days and I haven’t had the chance to let you know.”

Kurt was silent and still for a few moments before he shook his head a little, collecting himself as he turned back toward the stove. “I thought you’d returned it.”

“And have to deal with splitting transportation with a teenager? Hell, no. I got you your own car because I was already tired of sharing mine. You’ve been able to get rides with your friends this past week pretty good, but I don’t expect that to work out for long. Though I did get rid of some of the more ridiculous extras so no more spinning rims.”

“I can live with that.” His voice was still a little awed and Burt grinned at really surprising his kid with this. This was even better than when he’d originally given Kurt the Navigator. After a short silence, Kurt spoke again in the same airy tone. “Thank you, Dad.”

Even someone who wasn’t really great at talking things out like Burt knew that was about more than the car. Though, to be fair, if it was Kurt talking there was more than likely layers to what he was saying and Burt had had to get good at reading between the lines. And he considered himself to be pretty damn good at figuring his kid out. Challenging himself to have the thought, he just hoped when Kurt found someone they’d have the same deep perception.

And pushing himself to thinking about Kurt “finding a guy” hadn’t really worked.

Anyway, being able to read into what Kurt had said didn’t mean he could always just say so and he figured this was one of those times, especially since Kurt hadn’t had his morning tea – the kid didn’t drink coffee until the afternoon unless he’d really had trouble sleeping – so Burt kept the levity he’d had throughout their exchange, “Next time I’ll confiscate it for longer than a week. Consider this a warning for future offenses.”

“You mean don’t lead Mercedes to think we were dating?” Kurt responded and Burt’s mouth dropped open slightly. He hadn’t gotten the story of what happened and even now he wondered if Kurt was messing with him.

“Wait, seriously?” Burt was sure that if Kurt had been honest about him being gay with anyone, it would have been the girl that had suddenly become a regular fixture of his conversations.

“Yeah, though I suspect outside interference on her thoughts heading in that direction. She had such a reasonable grasp on reality before that.” Kurt let out an exaggerated sigh and Burt knew the moment had passed and he’d just have to wait until a future conversation to know if he’d done right.

Why did everything with his son have to feel like some elaborate chess game? And while Burt was pretty good at chess, he always felt like this was a game his son was way better at. Which just wasn’t right because he usually beat Kurt at chess, though it had been a few years since they’d played.

Kurt turned away from the stove, a plate of delicious looking and smelling pancakes and bacon ready for Burt and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation of getting his weekly home-cooked breakfast, to which Kurt gave him an amused shake of the head, though his eyes were fond.

“Just wait until I reveal all the alterations I’ve made to the recipes.”

“I’ll take ignorance on that one. As long as it still tastes like pancakes and bacon and I can put the correct amount of butter and syrup on it, I don’t care.”

“That’s just undignified.”

“Never claimed that so we’re all good.”

And as Kurt sat down with his reasonably less-filled plate with a smile that lit up his entire face, Burt agreed: it was all good with them right now.


	5. The Rhodes Not Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miss Pillsbury gives Kurt a ride home after what was possibly one of the most embarrassing moments of his life to date...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is checking this fic out and has liked it enough to send a kudo my way. I sincerely appreciate every single one! <3

Miss Pillsbury was really a nice lady. Quite possibly in the wrong place to be working as a guidance counsellor considering how neurotic she seemed most of the time, but she was really quite nice. After all, she had agreed to not reveal to Kurt’s dad that the reason he was sick and going home early was because of acute alcohol poisoning.

And Kurt had literally begged her not to say anything, undignified though it was, he couldn’t have his dad knowing what he’d done. They had only just started to get back on track with each other and Burt would be so disappointed by him doing something so…stupid.

His dad had never been a fan of drinking in excess. He had a beer occasionally, usually restricting it to days when Kurt would be home all night. Kurt had thought it was strange, figuring that Burt wouldn’t want his son know when he broke out the booze, then had figured out that it was a way of making sure he could always be there for Kurt if he was needed. The possibility of something coming up when Kurt was home was significantly lower when he was in the basement for hours on end. But it was always beer, never any of the hard liquor, and ever since Kurt could remember his dad had advocated against getting drunk or using alcohol to escape your problems.

And here Kurt had done exactly that, used alcohol to get over those last remaining hesitations of being exactly who he was at school. Because while he had stopped denying it when someone outright said it to him, there was still a huge part of him that wanted to run right back into the closet where people weren’t so knowingly accurate when they called him all those colorful words he’d known for entirely too long. That was what he was still struggling with in being himself, even around the Glee kids. So he’d ignored the absolute stupidity of what he was doing and had downed half of the thermos of alcohol before walking into school that morning, ready to not be afraid to walk through those doors.

At least driving safe was so ingrained into him that he hadn’t even considered drinking before leaving the house. He was certain that if he’d tried that, he probably wouldn’t have made it even close to the school.

That thought had him feeling like he was going to throw up again and he really didn’t want to have to ask Miss Pillsbury to pull over so he didn’t make her suffer through that. She’d already spent half an hour scrubbing herself down in the nurses’ bathroom while he was in there and he figured she still wasn’t pleased with the level of cleanliness if how her whole body was nearly shaking from tension was any indication.

But she’d walked in just as Kurt’s stomach had settled enough to start asking the nurse if he could just wait it out there and not call his dad. Miss Pillsbury had joined in then, trying to explain to him why they needed to tell his father that he’d been drinking and needed to go home immediately.

Kurt had played dirty then, though he hadn’t really meant it to be that way. He had gone into how nervous Burt had gotten about hearing from the guidance counsellor again, that the last time he’d talked to her she’d told him his son was suicidal and that’s not a conversation a father forgets, especially a father as protective as Burt Hummel was. After all, he was doing the work of two parents all on his own and Kurt wasn’t exactly the easiest kid to have to raise. He was stubborn, intelligent, independent, and wasn’t afraid of saying exactly what he thought of anything. That wasn’t even mentioning what him being gay meant to what both Hummels had to go through. His dad just couldn’t handle any more stress and Kurt going to school drunk would be such an insane amount of stress, it would literally take years off his life and Kurt couldn’t do that to his dad.

This was a bulk of the argument he’d used against Miss Pillsbury and he was pretty sure he should have needed more to get her to cave to basically break the rules. He acknowledged that if she wasn’t so freaked out about being vomited on, he wouldn’t have succeeded without significantly more. But he had convinced her not to tell his dad about what he’d done, the guidance counsellor just calling to let Burt know that Kurt was sick and she would do them both the favor of driving Kurt home on her way to “an errand.”

Kurt didn’t have to be completely sober to know she was heading home for a few hours in the shower. That’s what he’d do and he didn’t have her aversion to germs.

Though he was more concerned with his bed right now. His head felt fuzzy even as it pounded away and his stomach rolled every time he moved in some way more significant than breathing. Hell, even breathing wasn’t really agreeing with him. But he knew things would get infinitely better once he wasn’t upright anymore. Then he could actually relax and not have to tolerate anything else and that would help more than anything.

For the moment he wasn’t too bad off. He’d discovered that leaning against the cool window of the passenger door of Miss Pillsbury’s car helped subdue the pounding a little and that helped the nausea not be as intense. Now if only he wasn’t so tense about Miss Pillsbury sitting next to him in the car, he’d probably be able to be a little better off. But it had either been wait for his dad in the nurse’s office – which would have been hours later since he knew there had been some pretty labor intensive fixes on the schedule today at the shop – or the guidance counsellor give him a ride home. And while uncomfortable, he figured the quicker he got away from everyone the better so he’d taken the latter.

But the problem was that he was riding with the guidance counsellor and she had already asked him twice where he’d gotten the alcohol. He’d deflected the first time easily enough by exaggerating a little how close he was to vomiting again. Then when she’d asked again, he’d used the excuse of his dad telling him not to talk to strangers. It was juvenile but he figured being drunk – even though he’d sobered up quite a bit by now – was a good enough cover to get away with it. He figured it was only a matter of time before she tried again and he was content to take the reprieve to collect himself a little more before her next attempt. She may be the guidance counsellor and good at getting kids to reveal their secrets, but he was Kurt Hummel and no one got anything out of him that he didn’t want them to know.

…Okay, yes, he was still a little drunk. All the more reason to get home and away from people before he _really_ said something he would regret. They were almost there.

Just as soon as he’d had the thought, Miss Pillsbury cleared her throat and he knew she was going for her third try.

“So, Kurt, how’s your dad doing? Is work alright for him?” she asked. Well, this would be the first time she’d eased into it.

“He’s fine. The shop does well,” Kurt replied.

“That’s good to hear. How are you two getting along?”

“We get along fine.” Was she really going to try this approach? He could have handled this line of questioning while still completely intoxicated.

“That’s good. How about school? How is it being in Glee Club?”

“It’s fine.”

“How are you getting along with the other kids?”

“Fine.”

“That’s good. And what about football? You’re still on the team, right?”

“Yes.”

“I have to say, I was a little surprised that you’d joined the team. This is the first time you’ve been in any sports, right?”

He wondered if she’d looked at his file when she’d called his dad in before he’d joined Glee or did it quickly before they’d left the school. He didn’t give the teachers a reason to pay attention to him, even Mr. Schue when it wasn’t something to do with Glee, so they didn’t build _expectations_ of him to have to live up to. Expectations were irritating and just gave people stress they didn’t need. One just needed to look at Rachel and Finn to know how much trouble expectations of other people were.

It wasn’t until she’d spoken again that he realized that he hadn’t said anything. “But you’re doing alright?”

He knew where this was going even before he answered with a simple, “Yes.”

“Then why did you feel the need to get so drunk you got sick? If everything is fine, why do something like that?”

“Because I’m sixteen and I make mistakes.” Really, teenagers made stupid mistakes all the time. Not every single one had to have some deep meaning behind it that needed to be talked out. Feeling that he’d engaged in the conversation a little too much to keep in his position where he couldn’t see the woman, he turned his head so his temple was resting against the window and he could just barely see Miss Pillsbury out of his peripherals and he was grateful for not needing glasses. She kept on glancing over to him, getting reads on him as much as she could in her anxious state.

“It’s just strange since you’ve never had problems with things like this before. I’m wondering where you got the idea that you needed to drink.”

Kurt huffed out a sarcastic laugh. “All mistakes have to happen once and I learn best from experience.” She was glancing over at him more often now that he was actually giving a somewhat extended answer and he didn’t even try to quell the irritation from rising. “I don’t know the current percentage of car accidents that occur because of distracted driving, but I refuse to add to the statistic. Eyes on the road or I will drive the rest of the way home, blood-alcohol level or not.”

Her eyes snapped to face straight ahead, likely because of her state of mind combined with the tone he’d used. It was one he’d picked up from his dad that said nothing but “he knew best and you’d better listen or suffer the consequences. Burt hadn’t used it so much with him since he had hit about twelve and became better at it; Kurt figured his dad’s tactic of just knowing the points to make to get his son interested in his way of things worked better anyway. Anyway, people tended to listen to him when he talked like that and now was no exception…thankfully.

But also, because she had backed off like that, he felt he could take the opportunity to get her to back off. He wasn’t going to tell her that April had given him alcohol. That would get her kicked out and he wouldn’t do that to the Glee Club, not when they had their invitational in a matter of days and none of the other girls ready to take the lead. He wasn’t like that. “Like you said, I’ve never had problems like this before and I’d prefer to never feel like this again so I can promise it won’t be happening again until I’m properly legal. The lesson has been learned and it should just be put behind us so we can move on with our lives.” He paused, pulling himself back a little from being downright snarky and switched gears to appeal to her sensitivity while being honest with her. “Though, I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate you not telling Dad about this. I just don’t want him to be disappointed in me for this. I don’t want him to start worrying over something that won’t be a problem. He already has to worry about everything with me on his own.”

She pulled over in front of his house and turned to face him, her eyes soft at his admission and he knew he’d taken the right course. “I just want to remind you of what I told you before. I’m here for you, to help you work through these kinds of things before you feel the need to do something like this.”

“Thank you,” he responded simply as he reached for his bag and lifted the strap to his shoulder as his other hand dug in the front pocket for his keys.

“Remember to drink lots of water and just get some rest tonight. And if you’re still not feeling well tomorrow, then it’s alright to stay home until you feel better. You want to make sure you’re at your best for Saturday.”

“I will. Bye.” He stepped out of the car before she could try and keep him talking, though as soon as he was upright he felt like falling right back over and his stomach rolled a few times in protest to his sudden motion. He pushed through the feeling, walking up to his house in his usual stride out of stubbornness.

That faded quickly though as he nearly tripped on the second stair of the deck, misjudging how much he’d really lifted his foot, and he was eternally grateful for how aware he was of his balance even impaired. Then, he’d turned the deadbolt on the door the wrong way and didn’t notice until he turned the doorknob and tried to walk through the still closed door.

Seriously, he needed to not be trying to function anymore.

He dropped his bag off to the side of the door and toed off his shoes, deciding that he needed to feel his feet against the floor for the sake of knowing where they were in regards to the floor without anything getting in the way. He was a tactile person after all, so he might as well use it to his benefit.

He moved to the kitchen first, downing two glasses of water quickly before filling it a third time and bringing it with him to the living room. There was no way he was going to attempt the stairs right now, so he’d settle for the couch even if it wasn’t as comfortable as his bed. He set the water on the coffee table in front of the couch, then sat down heavily, happy to not be standing anymore as his head had already started to pound again. In a show of how horrible he felt, he pulled off the suit jacket, tie, and button-up shirt he was wearing and let them all pile on the coffee table next to the water, figuring they were already in sad enough shape that he’d had to fix later. This left him in the sleeveless shirt layer he pretty much always wore and he felt acceptably comfortable, then he pulled off his belt and socks and added them to the pile and really felt as comfortable as he would be able to get without access to his clothes down in his basement. But this would do well enough.

He grabbed the remote to the stereo and turned it on, lowering the volume to a level just above being able to make out the lyrics. He then turned to his side facing the back of the couch, pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch, covered his head with it, and curled up into himself as he focused his mind on the music.

He wasn’t really expecting to be able to get much sleep, not up here on the couch and without the soundproofing of the basement. Sleep didn’t come easily to him, as his long-standing prescription for Ambien could attest to. Falling asleep took forever, he was a light sleeper, and his dreams were bizarre enough that they woke him up regularly. Not to mention his propensity for nightmares when he was stressed out. He’d even sleepwalked a few times in the months surrounding his mom’s death. So, when he’d started middle school, his dad had let him move his room down to the basement and things had gotten a little easier at really having some space to himself. The rest was just figuring out the tricks to his mind, like his evening routine that took about an hour and to always having music playing – though his mom had started doing that for him when he was a baby and was likely part of the reason he’d gravitated toward exploring all the music he could as early as he had.

He used to wonder if he wouldn’t have such a difficult time about it if he weren’t so withdrawn. He kept so much – practically everything – to himself out of necessity, which probably didn’t do him any good. He’d stopped letting himself think about things like that, though, when all it would accomplish would be to depress him for the life he had to deal with. But he could acknowledge that things were getting a little better now, having a few friends as he did now and having a creative outlet besides fashion that he could commit to. It wasn’t too great of a difference, but it was enough to help a little and that was good enough for him.

The sudden touch of a hand on his side startled Kurt and he tried to scramble out from under the blanket before he heard his dad’s voice calling out to him, “Kurt, it’s just me. Take it easy.” He relaxed and let out a sigh, as the pounding him his head flared up again, but didn’t feel as bad as it had before. He must have actually managed to at least doze off.

The blanket was worked free from his head and his dad pulled it down to cover his body instead and the weight of his hand returned to Kurt’s side once the blanket was settled, moving up and down along Kurt’s ribs lightly, soothingly. Kurt had always gravitated to his dad when he was sick, loving the calm strength that the man exuded and how it made him feel safe when he was vulnerable, and his dad had always been content with that being the way of things.

“How you feeling, kiddo?” Burt asked, his voice lowered to just above a whisper which Kurt appreciated.

“A little better,” he answered honestly. “I’ll be good to go back to school tomorrow.”

“Fine, but don’t push it. If you aren’t really better, it’s okay to take another day off.” He knew his son well enough, knew he had a habit of understating things when something was wrong.

“I won’t.”

“Did you want to go downstairs, get some more sleep?”

Kurt considered it for a few seconds. He was sure that he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep for a while, no matter where he was, and he still didn’t feel like braving the stairs. Besides, he was really comfortable and really didn’t feel like moving. “No, I’m going to stay up here.” He let out a sigh as he pulled his legs a little closer to himself to give his dad more room to get comfortable. His dad didn’t hesitate to move to sit at the end of the couch, his hand moving down to be a familiar weight on Kurt’s ankle. A few seconds later, Kurt heard the TV turn on before the sound from it went away, his dad letting the music be what Kurt could listen to.

This day had really sucked and tomorrow he’d likely have to do a little damage control because of what he’d done. After all, he didn’t really remember the two classes he’d actually attended before the alcohol really got to him. But right now, he could just relax off the last of his stupid decision.


	6. Vitamin-D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt navigates being on the same team with guys he generally didn't trust. But things are supposed to be different now...

The assignment wasn’t so bad. Kurt didn’t object to the assignment. Competition would be good for them if how often they argued anyway was any indication. And they had appeared to have forgotten that there were bigger issues than the obvious win they had coming at sectionals. So, Kurt was reasonably supportive of the assignment.

It had been just over two months since he’d joined Glee Club and he could confidently say that he was settling into his place within it. He had enough self-awareness to admit – to himself – that he wasn’t a strong enough performer to stand on his own yet. His vocal training prior to this had all been personal and his dancing experience was too varied and inconsistent to be a great strength. However, that wasn’t how things would always be and he felt like he was working in the right direction to handle being a lead. Outside of rehearsals, he spent an hour each night working on a random song from his vast collection to rehearse over and over, challenging himself by changing up which key he sang to or even doing complete revisions of the song. Every few days, he would work in choreography, knowing he was even weaker in that aspect than in his singing or arranging. But his dancing wasn’t really bad. His body awareness was solid and he’d spent so much time watching music videos and picking up choreography – YouTube was one of the greatest inventions to hit his generation – that he found he picked up what Mr. Schue threw at them within the first few times through a number. He could then get out of the way of those who took longer to pick up on things – Finn and Puck – and just keep an observant eye on proceedings without being in the middle of the group.

He didn’t really like being in the middle of the group, even when they were just working through choreography. He worked best when he was put on the outside as it helped him keep from gaining attention while they were working and he could easily get some space from everyone if he felt tensions rising as they did often enough in this group. When Mr. Schue had started working him more toward the middle of the group, Kurt had tried to curb the idea. He’d offered the argument of how his height – closer to the girls than the guys – was less noticeable when he was on the outside but his reasoning had been dismissed and it seemed like he might have to get used to being closer to the center of the group than he preferred.

Ultimately, though, being in the middle of things just wasn’t representative of how he fit in to this group. He was in a unique position here, his gender placing him with the guys, his vocal range placed him closer to the girls, and his sexuality just making things complicated. He could blend his voice sufficiently enough – something he was gaining more proficiency and confidence in doing – but it wasn’t something that was coming naturally to him at all. Mr. Schue had tried to help him by telling Kurt that he didn’t expect his voice to fade into the guys but was looking for a unique sound to come from a countertenor present among the more standard bass and tenors of the other guys. So, as a way of training himself further, Kurt had started adjusting who he blended to, switching between the girls and the boys. It was sort of fun and the look he’d gotten from Rachel one day when he made the adjustment in the middle of some vocal runs had been rather amusing.

But being able to blend his voice didn’t mean anything to actually belonging among the others. Unfortunately, his first impressions of just about everybody in Glee Club with him hadn’t abated and that didn’t bode well for him getting along with them. Tina and Mercedes were great friends, he’d admit without hesitation and between the two he had plenty he could talk about with them but that was only a quarter of the people he spent near ten hours with each week. Brittany seemed genuinely nice as well, but Kurt could only tolerate her in small doses before his tolerance ran out. Rachel was an egotistical drama queen who was only interested in herself. Finn constantly walked the line of caring more about his reputation than committing to Glee. Artie had this tendency to try too hard to attain a level of cool that was just beyond his capability, making some of the things he said really inappropriate – though Kurt would admit a certain appreciation for what the other teen got away with. Puckerman was a bully and lacked brain activity. Santana was an outright cold-hearted bitch unless she was talking to Brittany. Quinn could practically be the poster child for high school prep, self-involved and obsessed with image as she was. Matt didn’t talk to anyone but the guys on the football team – Kurt didn’t count as he’d only been on the team for a few weeks and kept to himself entirely during practice. And Mike appeared nice enough, but again kept his company to Finn, Puckerman, and Matt, sometimes Brittany and Santana. Kurt just didn’t belong with any of that.

Though there was little in this town that he did belong with, so it wasn’t really anything different for him.

At the end of the day, Kurt was a realist. There was a peace between them all, but it was fragile at best and guys like Puckerman didn’t just change who they were, especially with Kurt out now and therefore openly challenging his heterosexual masculinity, or whatever those guys thought to turn Kurt into a threat that had to be tormented every single day. All this meant Kurt had his safety to consider, even in Glee Club, and so while everyone was pulled into the excitement of a number and the choir room became a freeform performance, Kurt stayed out of it or kept to the edges. Because while he was a somewhat more restrained person when it came to the showing off that those breakouts were, his love of music wasn’t worth risking inciting the temper of some of those guys he was supposed to be safe around.

So with that being the norm, Kurt keeping his distance from the guys unless absolutely necessary, was it any surprise that he’d actually panicked a little when Mr. Schue had split them up between boys and girls? Really, there were plenty of other acceptable ways of splitting up twelve teens that didn’t put Kurt with five people he was entirely uncomfortable spending the next week solely working with for Glee Club.

It had been a delayed reaction, the severity of the separation not really occurring to Kurt until he was suddenly surrounded by football players, at least half of whom had done some rather unsavory things to him not too long ago. Not even Artie in front of him had been enough to dispel the rising anxiety in him at how dangerous this was.

And then to have Mr. Schue just send him back into that danger was frustrating. Did that man really not understand what Kurt had to go through with these guys? He wasn’t one of the guys! He was the resident fag who talked funny and wasn’t good for any male to be around.

Kurt managed to keep his irritation restrained, having had enough practice at holding himself back like this. He couldn’t show them that this bothered him.

As the bell rang and everyone gathered their bags and headed toward their respective lockers to get ready to leave for the day, Kurt let out a sigh as Artie turned around and faced him.

“You seriously thought he’d let you go on the girls’ team?” Artie asked him, though he didn’t appear to be upset, more amused.

“Actually, yes. I thought sounding like a girl was acceptable, considering the competition. I won’t exactly be enhancing the sound for the boys,” Kurt responded, his frustration coming out with someone interacting with him, though he ended up more self-depreciating than he’d intended to sound.

“Are you kidding? We’re already two voices down from what the girls got since Matt and Mike refuse to actually sing.”

“Matt sings, just really quietly. He’s not horrible,” Kurt mused. He’d been positioned next to Matt a few times and had focused in on him to match his voice and the quiet teen had a fair voice but lacked the confidence to sing louder than absolutely necessary.

“See, two voices down already. And do you really think _Puck_ is going to contribute anything useful? I doubt it. Besides, doesn’t Mr. Schue say that your voice mixed in with ours makes it better?”

“He also just told us that lightning is in competition with an above-ground swimming pool and hasn’t provided a sufficient explanation for that.” It bugged Kurt as it completely managed to negate the teacher’s entire lesson with its lack of sense.

Artie did hesitate at that a little, but recovered well enough. “Anyway, we need to get right to work tomorrow. We need to make sure we demolish those girls and any hope they have of winning.”

“Right, and I predict we don’t even have songs selected by tomorrow. You do realize that a countertenor actually adds a limitation to what we can select and actually pull off.”

“We’ll figure it out. There’s some good classic rock that I think would work really well with that. And your lower range is getting better, right?”

“Better, yes, but not necessarily easier. You try singing absolutely every song in falsetto for a week and then maybe I’ll accept you understand what it’s like to have to blend into a key which doesn’t actually come naturally.”

Artie certainly wasn’t a stranger to having to adapt to different capabilities and Kurt did feel a little guilty for making it sound like he didn’t. But, really, this was supposed to be something he was good at and he really wasn’t being given an opportunity to do what he was good at.

His confidence in how this would go wasn’t helped when that night he started getting the wave of texts, including from numbers he didn’t recognize and he was going to destroy Artie or Finn, whichever one was responsible for giving his number to Puckerman, Matt, and Mike. But they were already arguing about songs and not even half of the options were appealing to Kurt. He didn’t even bother contributing to the process, turning his phone off after a few minutes and leaving it off for the rest of the night. He did, however, peruse through much of his classic rock and hip-hop collection – considering who was in the group with him and how likely it was that their selections would be from those genres – and testing out what he could get away with best. The focused work told him he was, indeed, making progress in singing more comfortably in his lower range. So the performance wouldn’t be too great of an issue as long as he could keep them from some of the more extreme selections.

He was still grouped with the guys, though, and he didn’t imagine that aspect would improve any.

The next day when they did gather in the choir room, things progressed somewhat smoothly so apparently they had actually accomplished something through the texting last night. Their mash-up only took about half an hour longer to pick songs for and Kurt didn’t actually have any objection to Bon Jovi and Usher. After kicking Finn off to the nurse, he and Artie had gotten to work on the arrangement of the number, since the other three guys had no experience at putting together a number. But Artie was really good at imagining how things sounded and knowing what would sound good and could communicate it well to Kurt.

Things had sort of fallen a little off-course once Finn returned though. He was more amped than Kurt had ever seen him and that was suspicious, especially when he tossed a box of pills at Puckerman and called them vitamins.

* * *

Peer pressure really sucked, Kurt decided as he approached the hour mark of the dancing session he’d started to try and burn off the rampant energy going through him.

He was not a high-energy person. He was a reserved individual who expressed his more active side in short bursts. When the moment passed, it was back to business as usual. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle extended exertion – between dancing and singing in Glee and having to partake in football practice he was becoming quite conditioned rather than just maintaining a healthy weight - he just didn’t prefer it.

Unfortunately, that naturally lower energy meant that he truly couldn’t perform at the same level as the other guys when they’d been hopped up on pseudoephedrine. That made him stand out when they were running through the number and not in a good way. The choreography was quite straightforward and simple for the sake of Finn and Puck being on the team, meaning that a lackluster performance would gain him all the attention.

So, he’d taken his dose along with the other guys about an hour before their performance. He thought they did alright, though his memory got a little hazy between the usual rush of performing and the extra boost from the “vitamin”.

He could only hope that it all paid off and the girls didn’t manage to put together as good of a performance. He really didn’t want to have to deal with Finn getting all depressed on them because of the loss. He felt a little better after having told the girls about them taking something, only feeling a little like he’d betrayed his team after actually going through with taking the dose. But it really was their fault for taking his help on arranging the number and then dismissing every other idea he’d put forward, despite how much stronger it would have made the appearance of their performance.

Now Kurt had an experience with both alcohol and drugs – albeit over the counter – which gave him reason enough to want to avoid them. There was nothing as poignant as personal experience and now he had it. Now he could move on to his next mistake, which would hopefully be a little further in the future. Just a few weeks between alcohol poisoning and getting high was really pushing it and he soon wouldn’t be able to claim he held any modicum of intelligence.

Which brought him to now, his iPod hooked up to the stereo they kept in the auditorium and him working out as much energy as he could before braving driving home. As soon as they’d put together Don’t Stop Believin’ and had a number with their own choreography, he’d made a playlist of those songs so he could go over them like this, mostly since every song they did was a contender for use in competition. If he practiced regularly, he would be better prepared for piecing things together in a pinch if necessary. He wasn’t the best dancer or choreographer, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get better by learning the craft. The playlist also included songs that he’d memorized the dancing for and could perform, like Single Ladies, so he had that to break things up.

But an hour in and he was seriously considering giving up on getting to a level he deemed normal enough and just going home to at least make an attempt on getting his homework done within a decent amount of time. He had just finished yet another song and was taking another water break – he was hoping getting more water in his system would help flush everything out like it had with the alcohol – when movement from past the stage caught his focus. He looked out to the seats and saw Mike and Matt walking along the aisle to the left side stairs and Kurt’s mind and body immediately went on alert, which at his current activity level meant his hands started wrenching on his water bottle.

Over the past week of working with the guys, he’d come to learn that both Matt and Mike weren’t really bad guys. They were actually quite decent, especially when compared to guys like Puckerman and Karofsky. And after they had performed, and Mr. Schue had praised them, Mike had gone straight to him and practically pulled him into the celebration with the other guys. Kurt wasn’t used to people, especially guys, trying to make him a part of the group and certainly not in the quite playful way in which it had been done. But Kurt had dismissed it quickly enough, attributing it to the excitement of celebration.

Yet here the other teen was and with Matt as well and Kurt found himself wishing he had something a little more sturdy than a water bottle to potentially defend himself with.

“Hey, Kurt,” Matt called out a greeting and it sounded friendly enough. “We were just gonna use the auditorium since the girls are still taking up the dance studio. Mind sharing the stage?”

“I’m finished. You can have it,” Kurt replied hastily, turning toward the stereo to grab his iPod.

“You don’t have to leave, man. There’s plenty of room.”

“It’s sort of why we wanted to use the auditorium. That just wasn’t nearly long enough to get all this buzz out of our system,” Mike explained.

So they were in the same predicament as he was: too much energy and needing to do something with it.

“And the Cheerios are on the field and we figure avoidance is the best course when it comes to Coach Sylvester,” Matt added as the two dropped their bags off to the side of the stage where they wouldn’t get in the way.

“I would agree with that assessment,” Kurt responded, his voice pitched a little higher than normal from his tension.

“So you wanna stick around and work with us?”

Kurt turned from where he had just unplugged his iPod and looked over to the pair at hearing Mike’s question, who were both doing some light warm up and stretches. Neither of them were really focusing on him, like this was just another day and they hadn’t offered _Kurt Hummel_ to _join them_. This had never happened before.

This was a momentous occasion and they weren’t even paying attention.

“It’d be a nice change, working with someone who has some sense of rhythm,” Matt added with a quick grin to Mike. “I mean, Puck and Finn have rhythm but it doesn’t translate to their bodies at all and there’s only so much we can do with Artie.”

The two went silent then, apparently now waiting for his answer and when he didn’t give one, they both turned to face him. He considered things for a few more seconds before he shook off his nerves enough to respond, “Yeah, alright. I could use a little more work.”

“Cool!” Mike exclaimed before he moved toward Kurt. When he got within arm’s reach, he glanced down at the iPod in Kurt’s grasp before he held out his hand. “Mind if I take a look?”

Kurt shook his head and passed the device over, ensuring the handoff was quick and that his hand didn’t make contact with Mike’s.

He knew better than to allow casual touches with any guy, knew they weren’t welcome.

Mike didn’t seem to notice Kurt’s tension as he started scrolling through the device, Matt walking over to stand behind him and look over his shoulder.

Kurt decided that it would just be best to leave them to pick whatever they wanted, figuring that if they didn’t find anything on his iPod they could just use one of theirs, he turned and moved to drop his water back off with his bag.

“Quite a collection you’ve got here,” Matt commented after a short silence.

“Thank you.”

“Seriously, man, do you live on iTunes?”

Kurt felt his face flush a little. Between two sentences, Matt started sounding like he was teasing.

“I’ve got, like a quarter of this.”

“And there’s like a little of everything here. An abundance of some things, but really a good variety,” Mike added.

“I enjoy music,” he responded as he crossed his arms over his chest. He really didn’t think he’d have to defend liking music to two guys that were in Glee Club. Just because they were dancers more than anything didn't mean they hadn't proven they knew plenty of music.

“Well, that’s obvious,” Mike said with a slight grin as he apparently made a selection and turned to plug the iPod back into the stereo, one of Kurt’s instrumental tracks sounding. “So, have you had any training before joining Glee?”

“Yeah, you picked up the moves for our number pretty quick,” Matt added as they continued warming up, their movements a little more reminiscent of dancing rather than getting their blood flowing.

“Yes, I’ve gone through some dancing classes.”

“Thought so. You’ve got good body awareness but don’t move like an athlete,” Mike observed. “What’d you do?”

“Mostly ballroom dancing with my mom.” She had learned when she was a teenager, thinking it was one of the most beautiful things people could do, and had started showing him when he was a few years old, then started enrolling him in classes when he kept showing interest. “I’ve also done some ballet.” He’d only spent about six months in ballet but had given it up, as he had with most things that weren’t absolutely necessary, after his mom’s death.

“It shows. Hey, you mind taking me through some ballroom? I haven’t really had any official training, just picked things up from watching movies and music videos. It’d be great to get some more work in on the more classical moves from someone other than Mr. Schue. He’s a great teacher and all, but he tends to get a little too focused on certain things and I’m still getting used to the whole dancing _and_ singing thing.”

Kurt hesitated a little before giving a short nod as he moved a little closer towards center stage. “Sure. At least, you’re doing better than Finn, and he’s been in almost as long as I have. He still doesn’t have the best grasp on singing and moving. And not being able to sing is easier to cover up than dancing.”

The other two teens moved to follow him onto the stage and the three got to work going through whichever steps Mike and Matt felt like working on, spending at least another hour on the stage until Mr. Schue had to ask them to leave so he could lock up.

It was an hour well spent, in Kurt’s opinion. Not only because he was able to get some solid work in on his technique, but could also get some good tips from the other teens who were exceptional dancers. In fact, they had ended up taking turns going over dance moves and Kurt had learned as much from them as he hoped they had learned from him. It had been nice, just hanging out with a few other guys who didn’t appear to care that he was the “resident gay”, who didn’t treat him like a leper who would infect them if they came too close.

Matt and Mike were actually nice guys and Kurt was glad to have learned that about them.

Actually, he’d learned quite a bit about the other guys in the Glee Club over this past week, enough that he felt as though he may be able to relax just a little more during rehearsals. They were all in this together and it appeared as though all the guys realized that to some degree.

Not that Kurt expected Noah Puckerman to actually turn into a decent human being any day in the near future, but he might not be one Kurt had to really concern himself with anymore.

One bully down, only the rest of the school to go…


	7. Throwdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're all starting to get that the Glee Club is about the one thing they all have in common instead of everything else that makes them different...

****

Kurt really didn’t want to seem like he was siding against Mr. Schuester. It wouldn’t be fair to their teacher if he did, not after all he’d done for the Glee Club in the relatively short time they’d been together.

He certainly didn’t want to side with Sue Sylvester, not after she had taken such a decided stance against Glee Club’s existence.

However, he would admit that the woman did know how to commit to anything she put her mind to.

Offering suggestions for their practiced numbers and even giving possibilities for Sectionals which weren’t immediately dismissed was hard to dismiss easily.

That did nothing to abate the growing disquiet between the divided members of the same team. At least the previous week with the boys vs. girls competition, there was the knowledge that once they were finished they would be returning to working as a single group, ideally their group work would even be improved.

There appeared to be no such endgame here. Coach Sylvester was inciting as much competition between the two groups with the intent of that competition showing through even when they reached Sectionals.

Kurt was less favorable of the situation as days passed with the Glee club separated as it was; he knew he wasn’t the only one displeased about it. While no one had actually commented on their thoughts about the situation – none of them were stupid enough to risk the Coach hearing them – there was just something off about how they all interacted while rehearsing and Kurt paid attention enough to his friends to notice these things.

After all, while Coach Sylvester knew how to put together a routine or a performance – whatever term one wanted to assign to what they were doing under her instruction – she didn’t know what it meant to work with a Glee Club. She didn’t seem to understand that they needed to do more than rehearse a competition number, that they tended to get restless – for lack of a better term – if they didn’t get some variety in their music.

Or perhaps they had been approaching the Glee Club thing wrong and this was how things should have been all along. It was, after all, Kurt’s first experience in a Glee Club and when they’d reached out for outside help like the debacle with Dakota, they’d been pressed to focus only on competition performances.

That sounded so much less enjoyable to Kurt, no matter how competitive he could be.

Perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to remain loyal to Mr. Schue once he took a few moments to think things through, after all.

“You think we could get away with stopping by the choir room before we get started with Glee Club today?” Kurt asked Mercedes and Tina as they sat down to lunch.

The two girls looked over to him, briefly confused by the sudden question before both glanced around, likely looking for Coach Sylvester to suddenly jump out and catch them talking about performing some unsanctioned action like he was insinuating.

“Mr. Schue has the choir room today. We’re in the gym,” Mercedes responded, likely to get him to outright say what he was suggesting.

“I know that. What if we just stop by and see what the others are up to?”

Tina leaned forward slightly before speaking, “It has b-been a few days since we’ve really talked to any of the guys in Mr. Schue’s team. It’s k-kinda weird. I even miss getting critiqued by Rachel, just a little.”

“There’s really no reason why we shouldn’t be able to hang out with them. This whole thing is between Mr. Schue and Coach Sylvester.”

Mercedes scoffed at that. “There’s always something going on between those two. It’d be nice if they left us out of it for once.”

She pulled out her phone and started punching in a text, which was part of the reason Kurt had brought it up to her: he wasn’t really known for inciting things between Glee Club members. Encouraging things, certainly, but not being the one to get the ball rolling. He was pretty sure he still didn’t even have Puckerman, Quinn, or Santana’s numbers and he wasn’t necessarily in any hurry to acquire them.

A few seconds after she set her phone down on the table to the side of her tray, Kurt’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he reached to pull it out just as Tina did the same after another second delay, indicating that Mercedes had just gone the easy route and texted them all instead of excluding the two she was sitting with.

Kurt figured any one of them would have done the same thing simply for sake of convenience when coordinating twelve high schoolers’ schedules.

As the text had just been a simple _Choir room jam before Glee?_ and wasn’t likely to give any of the recipients anything else to say besides an answer, Kurt set his phone screen-down on the table and got Mercedes and Tina going on the latest gossip. He wasn’t really into keeping up with gossip, but it made for wonderful distraction when these two got into it. More so Mercedes than Tina, but no matter.

He gave it a few minutes before he reached for his phone again - the two girls currently in a wonderful debate over who was the worst influence, Coach Sylvester or Coach Tanaka – and looked over the many responses. They were all responses in the affirmative and he felt relief rise in him. Even the most seemingly indifferent response had been yes and Kurt felt like his missing everyone even after such a short time was validated somehow. Like them actually forming some sort of camaraderie wasn’t just in his head.

He hadn’t expected that.

His better mood lasted through the rest of the afternoon. And for once his enjoyment wasn’t destroyed by a Slushee facial so that made it even better.

As his last class for the day was one he shared with Artie, Mike and Matt, he joined them for the walk to the choir room, Mercedes and Rachel joining them along the way. When they reached the choir room, they were the first to arrive so they sat down on the risers and started talking songs.

The rest filtered in over the next few minutes, some coming from rooms further across the school. Finn settled in at the drums and Puckerman grabbed one of the guitars on his way toward the risers.

It was like any other day of Glee Club and they would be a while ahead of Mr. Schue.

And then as they launched into a very enjoyable “Ride Wit Me,” it was like nothing had changed. They all settled into the lyrics and played off each other just as easily as they did when they were on stage. Though when they freestyled like this, it wasn’t about anything but loving music.

If there was no other commonality between them, they all loved music, even the ones that didn’t always seem like it.

This was the sort of thing he was looking for when he’d auditioned for Glee and no dispute between their teachers would ruin that for him.

He wasn’t worried about having to do anything about it; if things kept as they did and continued to spiral downhill, either Rachel would storm out or Finn would speak up. Those two could pretty much always be relied on to make their point when they didn’t agree with something.

And he wasn’t disappointed as two days later, Finn did just that and they got things back the way they were supposed to be.


End file.
